Boulevard of Broken Reeds and other songs
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Total ripoffs of Green Day's American Idiot album.
1. Boulevard of Broken Reeds

I play this stupid song  
Even though I'm just mouthing along  
I know this is wrong  
But I do not care, and I mouth along. 

Mindlessly tapping feet  
On the Boulevard of Broken Reeds.  
Taking a repeat  
All totally fake, I mouth along.

My mouthpiece is all that's vibrating with me.  
My fingerings are all I'm doing.  
Sometimes I wish someone out there would sue me  
Till then, I mouth along...

I'm marching in the line  
That divides me from the kids behind  
On the border line  
Of home and of away. I mouth along.

Read the ledger line  
What's messed up, and everything's all right.  
See the D S sign  
Nobody sees my "reed", so I mouth along.

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	2. Don't wanna be a Bari Saxophonist

Don't wanna be a bari saxophonist  
Don't want a case that is taller than I am.  
I'd rather be exiled to Siam  
Then lug this thing that starts me cryin'. 

Welcome to a new kind of tension  
All up and down my vertebrae  
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.  
I have dreams of playing soprano  
My weakened lungs produce a piano (dynamic mark, not instrument)  
That's all that they have air to play.

Well, maybe I'm a wimp on the alto  
Disagreeing with super-strong bozos.  
Now everybody lift this and-uh-oh  
Fall to the floor and cry over your boo-boo.

Don't wanna be a bari saxophonist  
Don't want a case that is taller than I am.  
My muscles, weakening and dying,  
Are telling me to become a trombonist.

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	3. 15ma

Hear the sound of the squeaking horn  
Makes you wish that you never had been born  
And scorn  
The ones whose parts aren't so forlorn. 

Hear the baritone's chords so low  
Sometimes I just really want to go  
And blow  
In the bass clef, that would be joy.

I beg to play an octave lower than this line  
I'm third clarinet, this fate should not be mine  
15ma.

Hear the drummer who needs no voice  
If I played that, then I could rejoice.  
The choice  
To play clarinet didn't say

I'd be playing notes up so high  
I thought there was a reason my  
Part says "third" not "first", why oh why?

The representative from the flute section has the podium.

(Flutist says:) Please follow your conductor!  
Repeat signs are your punishment.  
Pulverize the weak-lunged third parts  
That criticize the notes. (Clarinetist continues:) I went  
Rip rip to this stupid sheet.  
Transpose the parts that don't agree.  
Endurance trials, blowing high notes  
Is not the way that's meant for me.  
Just cause...just cause because I play third part!

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	4. Subcontrabass Bassoon Part I

I can never play in tune  
I play sub-contrabass bassoon.  
Once in a blue moon  
I rest-that's a boon-  
To everybody. I croon  
Below low C with six inch reeds  
But I really have done good deeds for the band  
They don't understand  
How musical I am.

And there is something wrong here? Nay!  
This is what I'm supposed to play  
And I won't stop or go away  
You go away from me!

Get my lesson-play a note  
The way the composer wrote  
Just a single A, that's all I can play  
Till my next lesson next week.

To lose my breath and try again  
Until my sanity has been  
Eroded down  
Beaten to the ground  
And I'm left with only a frown.


	5. Subcontrabass Bassoon Part II

Sub-contrabass Bassoon Part II: C is D's A-flat 

At the left side of the pages  
Every single line of key signatures doesn't look like mine  
The motto is just a lie  
It says "Do is B-flat"  
But what a shame  
'Cause everyone's B-flat isn't the same  
Only beats keep us in line  
C is D is F  
At the end of another long slur  
D.S. signs leading somewhere:  
C is D's A-flat  
Accidentals with scrawled crossouts  
No one really seems to play  
I read the carvings on the music stand  
Some kid from decades ago hated band  
And they seemed to confess they didn't play much  
But it only confirmed that  
The left side of the page puts me in rage  
And I could care less.


	6. Subcontrabass Bassoon Part III

Sub-contrabass Bassoon Part III: I Won't March 

I won't march if you won't.  
We're just marching back and forth  
East and south and west and north  
We pep up, the quarterback  
Gets her forty-second sack  
We are the kids that play and walk  
From the kickoff to the zeroed clock  
We can barely carry a tune  
Much less a sub-contrabass bassoon  
We'd like to stop or go away  
But we still have to play.


	7. Subcontrabass Bassoon Part IV

Sub-contrabass Bassoon Part IV: Dearest Director  
Dearest director, are you lecturing?  
I didn't notice a word that you were saying.  
Are we playing too fast?  
Or am I out of tune?  
I'm in between attention and full disregard  
Repeat what you said, it should not be too hard.  
Am I going deaf?  
Is my sanity left?  
Nobody's perfect and you've caught me in  
The act of carelessness. Is that such a sin? 


	8. Subcontrabass Bassoon Part V

To play and not to breathe is to die from lack of air.  
To chromatically scale  
The octaves is unfair. 

So I leave behind  
My f-sharp, which the flutes in kind  
Take as a B, so play A D.  
Trumpets play A

And I leave  
I leave the band  
This isn't how it was planned.

So I leave behind  
My f-sharp, which the flutes in kind  
Transpose off the line

A million and one octaves  
For the last time.

I'm done playing this game.  
No tears will leave my eyes

When there's nothing left to play  
In band I'm always bored.  
I leave you one last note:  
Tales of another broken chord.


	9. He's a Rebel

He's a rebel  
He's insane  
He's the first chair and he is phenomenal.  
He's a rebel  
For his gender  
And he makes other flutists look abominable. 

From the goalpost  
To the endzone  
He marches fastest and with the most fury.  
He's no symbol  
Of the band, he's  
A rebel and he revels in his glory.

Is he thinking  
What I'm dreaming?  
Is he the one I've waited for, far beyond the team?  
Does he differ  
Like I differ?  
He seems richer  
Than he might at first glance seem.

He backs up the director  
He plays 15ma  
He moves unlike a vector  
Mathematics can't define  
What cycles through his mind.

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	10. Letter Jacket

Ember Nickel notes: Turns out there really is a contrabass bassoon, so earlier chapters have been edited to be more preposterous.

Where have all the last chairs gone?  
The flip folders stacked up ten high?  
The drumline failed at state, now accepting their fate,  
You have no letter jacket and no pride.  
Where has the transposing gone  
As the motto gets the B-flat revised?  
Lose your breath and try again, looks like you are on try ten  
This match doesn't work, go back to your flute.  
You move in a diagonal drill,  
A pawn to someone else's will.  
When the game is do or die, you care if you're playing high.  
It is over when my team is down-which comes in the first quarter, it's too late.  
This team is losing-"It's not my choosing"  
This is over, it's too late,  
I don't care for a long goodbye.  
Where will all the martyrs go when we buy helmets, not horns?  
And where will this team go but 0-and-8?  
I'd rather play sub-contrabass bassoon  
Then watch you acting like a goon  
I liked you? I was a buffoon.

What's worse than being all alone is  
"It is over when my team is down-which comes in the first quarter, it's too late.  
This team is losing-"It's not my choosing"  
This is over, it's too late".  
She said, "I can't take this band, I hope your life is fun"  
She said, "I can't take your love, what we had is all done."


	11. Make the Oboe Play

Take away the jealousy we all share  
Looking at her, down in the first row.  
It's like the trombones are treated unfair  
We can't take injustice anymore.

Drain the rests from her sheet music  
Test her, force her, make her prove it  
Make her play out her chops  
That will make us feel tops  
Tell her, (insert "director" the last time) "You do not do a thing".  
Just make the oboe play.

Out of practice, out of marching,  
Cast the demon out of the band!  
She doesn't play, and that is not alright.  
The director says it's actually fair,  
But it's not. Hear our cry!

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	12. Your Director

I am driving from the stadium as we speak  
Upon the boulevard, I'll be back next week  
Lights of the stadium  
Make me think life is dumb  
Just try conducting-wave a 1, 2,  
1 2 3 4- 

I'm your director, don't attempt to wear me out  
The overseer your older siblings moan about  
King of the podium and I'm here to represent  
The football coach's nightmare: anti-heaven-sent.

I'm the patron saint of syncopation  
With a baton and a taste for humiliation.

Mouthpieces and drumsticks and a bit of insane hope  
That I can pull this off, but my students say no.  
Raised in the middle schools and pampered night and day  
Product of luxury-I'll teach them how to play.

Are you talking to me? I'll give you something to scream about! I'm in charge!

I am your director from the school of hard knocks.  
I'm the one that's from the thirty-yard line.  
Middle-age commander, the one that docks  
Points from your score-eleven, ten, nine...

I'm very proud to say it that I told you so  
So open up your mouth and blow that note, you there.  
Welcome to the band, I hope you'll understand  
You can't complain that this is no fair.

I don't care  
Your "lack of air"  
I'm your director.  
AND DON'T ATTEMPT TO WEAR ME OUT!


	13. An Inordinate Trill

This is an inordinate trill  
But the page with them is filled  
And I can't seem to find my breath.  
I lack the courage to go on  
It seems something new has dawned  
These fingerings will be my death. 

She's all alone again  
Watch as she's once again sacked.  
Some days my lungs are broken  
The band is just a token.

She sees that we do them no good  
Unlike a real pep band would  
We don't bother to ask why.  
I steal a breath and play again  
And my frozen knuckles tense  
And again I'm filled with fury.

She's all alone again  
Watch as she's once again sacked.  
Some days my lungs are broken  
The band is just a token.  
Now that we both have spoken-  
The band is just a token.

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	14. Wake Me Up When the Season Ends

_This barely needs parodying-but it's getting some, anyhow. Same holds for parts of "Homecoming"._

Summer has come and passed  
The melodies can never last.  
Wake me up when the season ends.

As she backs up, she can't pass,  
Seven points have gone so fast.  
Wake me up when the season ends.

Here comes an A again  
Followed by a B  
Can't go away again  
It all falls down to me.

As I tap my feet through rests  
I never forget how we lost.  
Wake me up when the season ends.

Play on the chimes again  
Like we did when practicing.  
Wake me up when the season ends.

As she backs up, she can't pass,  
Twenty points have gone so fast.  
Wake me up when the season ends.

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	15. Homecoming Part I

Homecoming Part 1: The Surprise of the Director

My band is running from me  
I am standing all alone  
Please call me only if you are coming home.  
Waste-another year flies by.  
Waste a class or two  
I taught you how to play…

When the sides are lopped  
With your reeds gone, you've blown out your chops  
There's no DS sign  
And all the hope in the world isn't thine  
There's a glow of change  
Though you might think I'm mildly deranged  
I was all there was  
To make a halftime show, and because  
We were pushed too hard  
No wonder they're losing ground yard by yard.  
It's come down to this  
If you don't come back I will sorely miss  
The music you brought.  
The current students can't play well for naught.  
I told them that, for a month now I've fought  
And at auditions shocking news I got.  
I'm surprised today  
At how poorly a flutist can play  
In a twist of fate  
The ex-first chair now is second-rate.


	16. Homecoming Part II

Homecoming Part II: Twelve-Yard Line

Will anyone march?  
Will anyone march?  
Will anyone march  
Before it is March?

Sub-contra's below the rules now  
Flutist is running on the home twelve-yard line  
They're not supporting any schools now  
They're in their own worlds  
And they are seething

They'd rather be doing something else now  
Neither one cares about the flip folders  
They march on the line and they're hating me now  
Let's start the game before it gets colder.

Somebody get us off the field  
Anybody get us off the field  
Somebody get us off the field  
Get all these losers off the field!

So hard to play  
We don't wanna stay  
Get us out of here right now  
Just wanna be free  
Is there a possibility?  
Get us out of here right now

This half-baked team ain't for me!

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	17. Homecoming Part III

Homecoming Part III: Nobody Likes This

I stood alone while watching the trombone  
After ten grueling measures and you're still not here.  
Conducting this song, but something went wrong,  
And I know what the problem is, you are not here.  
Left me stuck this way  
Nobody wants to play  
After ten grueling measures I'm thinking  
Where'd you go?  
_Nobody likes this  
Everyone left this  
They want to get out of it  
And have fun._


	18. Homecoming Part IV

Homecoming Part IV: Rock'n'roll Girlfriend

I have started my own band  
I live for my rock'n'roll  
I gotta rock'n'roll girlfriend  
At the core of my soul

I've got a shirt that's all black  
I've got some rainbow-hued hair  
I play the drums till blood pours  
I play guitar pretty fair

I gotta protégé here  
I gotta protégé yon  
I think you're an old fogey  
And I won't rest till you're gone  
So get out of my face.  
No sub-contrabass!  
Out! Of! My! Face!


	19. I Am Just Waiting

Left, back, right,  
Stadium lights coming down over me.  
Windy gusts, think I must be near dead.  
Am I? I am. Am I? I am, I am just waiting to pass.  
The chips are down, how can this town love its team?  
Found and lost, lovers' cost I can't read. 

And asking  
Am I? I am. Am I? I am, I am just waiting...

Forget this joke, too cold to have spoke, and I'm annihilated  
Win or lose, same old news hits its stride.  
Am I? I am. Am I? I am, I am just waiting to pass.  
They're out of tune, clouds hide the moon, who cares why.  
Is there such thing as a sub-contrabass bassoon?

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	20. Fury

Thought we were running free across the field  
Then it turned out it was a fantasy.

I made a point to never think about your throws  
You went away and I was submerged in my woes.  
Just pivot once more, so I can see your name  
And can wonder how much fury I'm in.

Seems that your opponents are closing in  
Your receivers don't know where to begin.

Want to scream at your team  
Seems like there's no place I can go  
"No regrets" are useless when you play  
Thou shalt not pass.

And when the clouds obscure  
The stars and planets, I am sure  
I'll never forget when  
I wonder what might have been.

(Repeat verses as needed.)


	21. Homecoming Part V

Yes...this is the end. Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, especially "Genius of Music". It's been great writing for everyone. I could go on and on, I bet, about how today is February 23rd, and that's the day "American Idiot" is dated in the official lyrics, andhow every ending is a new beginning...but I won't.  
Enjoy.

Homecoming Part V: We're Coming Home Again

Here we come marching up the field  
Like an army with a total lack of shield  
Coming back after our bells pealed  
Now we take our ease.

Our time has come and it's here today  
Nobody ever said we couldn't play  
Shoulder pads and neck straps with us will stay  
In the autumn breeze.

The world is spinning round and round and we are all whole again  
We were down by seven but we just held tight, bore down,  
So sew me to your letter jacket, I won't leave your side,  
We're the ones coming home-  
We're coming home again.

_I started flat-out running when I saw I couldn't pass.  
I'm back in the endzone but that only means I'm here at last  
_I'm home-  
We're coming home again.

"Nobody likes this"  
"Everyone left this"  
But without this, where is their fun?

(Repeat verses as needed.)


End file.
